Parliament to Focus on Critical Bills as the House is set to go on Recess

Ghana’s Parliament has decided to consider critical Bills for the Eleventh Week, as the august House is expected to adjourn sine die on Friday, the 29th of July, 2016.

Presenting the Business Statement for the Eleventh Week, the Majority Leader and Leader of the House, Alban Bagbin informed the House that ‘Mr Speaker, we have decided and we are proposing to the House that the House should take a bow. We should adjourn sine die (without a fixed date) on Friday, the 29th of July, 2016.’

He added that ‘we decided that the Business is so huge and we may not be able to carry through all we have started. And so the proposal of the House is for us to focus on critical bills that we can complete before we go on the adjournment.’

Hon. Bagbin also said that ‘the House is likely to be called either getting to the end of September or early October, 2016, to come and continue with Business since elections have now been decided to be held on December 7.’

‘Mr Speaker, the Business Committee also decided to zone on a number of bills and basically when you go through them, those bills are time bound and some of those are part of our relationship or understanding with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’, the Majority Leader explained.

He further indicated that ‘the Lawmakers would have seen that some of the bills that we started are no longer being mentioned in the report. The intention is for us to take those on in October when we come back. Our focus will be on bills.’

Hon. Bagbin also stated that ‘we will be looking at the Right to Information Bill, Ghana Aids Commission Bill, National Disaster Management Organisation Bill and the Technical Universities Bill. And then a few of the financial bills like Customs (Amendment) Bill, Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, Supplementary Appropriation Bill, and there are some critical ones that will come.’

He added that ‘in fact one has been laid but we have not yet received the Report from the Committee, which is the Companies (Amendment) Bill.’

On Monday, the 25th of July, 2016, the Lotto and Lotteries Authority Bill, the Statistics Bill, the Energy Commission (Amendment) Bill and the Advertising Council Bill, 2016, will be presented and Read a First Time on the floor of the House.

The Minister for Finance, Seth Terkper is also expected to move a motion for Parliament’s approval of Supplementary Estimates of Government for the 2016 Financial Year.

It is worth noting that the Public Elections (Presidential and Parliamentary Elections Date) Instrument, 2016, which seeks to regulate the 2016 General Elections, was duly laid on the floor of the House on Friday, the 22nd of July, 2016, by the Chairman of the Business Committee of the House, Alban Bagbin.

The Instrument is referred to the Committee of Subsidiary Legislation for consideration.